Search The Blog

Q: My grandkids hate going into the water by our beach because of the muck. What can I do to get rid of it?

Gerhard – Dallas, TX

A: There are few things nastier than stepping into a cool, refreshing lake on a hot summer day – only to feel that slimy goo squish between your toes and suction off your favorite flip-flops.

Pond muck is gross, it’s smelly and it’s no fun. That yucky muck is made up of fish waste, decaying plants and other organic materials that accumulate at the bottom of your pond. Over time, the sludge can build to be inches or more thick. Don’t worry: Get rid of it with a one-two punch of beneficial bacteria and aeration.

Bacteria to the Rescue

Microorganisms are busy little critters. Billions of beneficial bacteria already live in your pond and work hard to break down pond muck, but it sounds like they’re overworked and outnumbered. You can boost their numbers with regular doses of MuckAway™. The pelleted product sinks to the bottom – where you need it most – and starts working to gobble through the muck. MuckAway™ works well in areas that experience high water flow, like canals, beaches and lakefront property.

When applied consistently once every two weeks when water temperatures are above 50º F and used with a bottom-diffused aeration system, MuckAway™ can break down up to 5 inches of pond muck per year. That’s some serious sludge digestion! It may not solve your grandkids’ yucky muck dilemma this year, but you’ll definitely see an improvement by this time next year.

Circulate and Aerate

Like every living creature on earth, the beneficial bacteria in your lake needs oxygen to thrive, and that’s where aeration and circulation come into play.

Aeration prevents thermocline, which is when the water column stagnates and forms layers. The upper portion of the body of water that’s exposed to air contains oxygen while the deeper areas lack oxygen – which is where your beneficial bacteria live (or are struggling to survive!). Implementing an Airmax® Aeration System will circulate the contents of your pond and infuse the entire water column with oxygen. This influx in oxygen helps beneficial bacteria flourish and feed on all that accumulated organic debris.

Short-Term Solution

For your grandkids’ enjoyment on the beach this summer, you can remove some of the pond muck with a Pond & Beach Rake and a bucket or wheelbarrow. But definitely make plans to treat your beach area with MuckAway™ and install an aeration system so you’re all ready for fun in the sun next year.

Pond Talk: If you’ve manually removed muck from your pond or lake, what do you do with it?

Q: After getting out of my swimming pond, I had a leech on my leg! How do I remove leeches from my pond?

Dennis – Blythewood, SC

A: There’s nothing like climbing out of your pond and finding one (or more!) of these little blood suckers stuck to your leg. What are they, and how do you banish them from your pond?

Getting to Know Leeches

Leeches are 2-inch-long brownish-black segmented worms that are a distant cousin to the earthworm. They use their suction cup-like mouths and teeth to latch on to vertebrate and invertebrate animals, feeding on their blood. Of the 700 different leech species, the majority live in freshwater environments, like your swimming pond.

Leeches love to live in the debris at the bottom of your pond. In all that muck accumulation, they get comfortable, find food and hide from predators—also known as fish—swimming overhead.

Despite their bad reputation, leeches aren’t all bad. Up until the 18th and 19th centuries, these worms had been used medicinally on humans to improve and restore blood circulation. The practice waned for a time—likely a combination of the yuck factor and modern medicine—but it’s slowing coming back into favor. In fact, Emma Parker Bowles (daughter of Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall) recently wrote about how leeches helped relieve her of debilitating migraines.

Kicking Leeches to the Curb

Unless you practice leech therapy, you probably want to evict those invertebrates from your pond. The best way to do that is to remove their preferred habitat—all the muck and debris covering the bottom of your pond. How do you do that? Here’s a four-step approach:

1. Pull Out the Debris: First, use a lake rake, like the Pond & Beach Rake, to remove weeds, accumulated debris, algae, decomposing plants and muck.

2. Add Beneficial Bacteria: Next, add some beneficial bacteria, like those found in MuckAway™. The bacteria will head to the bottom of the pond and digest whatever muck remains. Remember that it will take some time to break down all that debris, so be patient.

3. Let Your Fish Do the Work: With nowhere to hide, those leeches will become tasty meals for your fish. You may even consider adding some more leech-eating fish to your pond.

4. Trap and Destroy: For those leeches that elude your finned friends, you can trap and remove them with a baited trap. Punch leech-size holes in a coffee or aluminum can, bait it with raw chicken or fish heads, and position it in a shallow area of your pond. When the worms go for the grub, they can get in but not out because the burrs from the hole punches will prevent them from escaping. Remove the can once it’s full and repeat until the leeches are gone.

If a leech latches onto you, don’t worry. In most cases, it won’t do any harm. In fact, you might not even feel it as the tiny critter injects the spot with anesthetic-anticoagulant combo while attaching itself with its suckers. You can remove a leech by breaking its suction seal with your fingernail or another blunt object, causing the worm to detach its jaws.

Q: I hear about being proactive, but what are PondClear™ and MuckAway™, and how does it help my pond?

Ed – Cambridge, NY

A: Your agricultural pond or fish-filled lake faces an unseen threat: an inorganic chemical called phosphate. Found in many fertilizers used in farming applications, phosphates do wonders for helping plants to grow—but when they leech into your pond or lake after a heavy rain, they can fuel algae blooms that can ultimately do harm to your fish population, not to mention being unsightly and malodorous.

Though it may be difficult to prevent those phosphates from finding their way into your water, you can take a proactive approach to minimize the algae growth and protect your fish. This involves binding and removing the phosphates, cleaning up the water column and breaking down accumulated muck.

EcoBoost™, which is found in ClearPAC® PLUS, grabs hold of the algae-stimulating phosphates and other suspended organics in your pond, allowing the beneficial bacteria in PondClear™ and MuckAway™ to grow and gobble through excess nutrients in the water. EcoBoost contains more than 80 trace minerals to promote fish health and fast growth, as well as helping to create clean and clear water that your finned friends will appreciate!

Clean the Water

PondClear™ is designed to clean the water from the top down. It contains beneficial bacteria that devour excess nutrients that are suspended in the water, which feed algae. The natural bacteria digest the organic debris, leaving behind water that’s clean and clear while promoting a healthy ecosystem for your lake’s inhabitants.

Remove the Muck

MuckAway™ cleans the water from the bottom up. The pellets sink to the bottom of your pond and release beneficial bacteria that eat away at any accumulated pond muck. The result is improved water clarity and reduced odor. With regular use, MuckAway™ can break down up to 5 inches of muck per year—and that means less nutrients to feed algae blooms.

Keep in mind that these products will take some time to kick in. It took a long time for the muck and debris to collect in your pond or lake, and so it won’t disappear overnight. Be patient and follow the dosage schedule, and you’ll ultimately be pleased with the results.

Q: Is there an easier way to get rid of weeds? I’m tired of pulling them by hand.

Beverly – Richfield, WI

A: Who doesn’t love tools? They’re cool to look at, fun to play with – and, the best part, they help make chores easy. When it comes to maintaining your pond or lake, tools of all shapes and sizes will come in very handy, particularly these four must-haves, below.

Pond Rake

A pond rake pulls, gathers and removes dead debris from the surface or the bottom of a pond.

Debris on the surface of a pond, like algae or fallen leaves, can sink to the bottom and start to decay, adding to the muck and detritus that’s already there. All that debris degrades water quality, compromises fish health, provides a nutrient source for nuisance plants, and can even affect chemical treatments’ ability to work.

A floating/sub-surface pond rake, like the The Pond Guy® Pond and Beach Rake, or a sub-surface pond rake, like the Jenlis Weed Raker™, lends a long helping hand. Elongated by rope so you can easily get the deep-water growth, both rakes work by removing submerged lake and pond weeds by their roots, slowing their spread.

The V-shaped Jenlis Weed Razer™ clears a 4-foot-wide path in pond weeds by sinking to the bottom and slicing through submerged weeds like watermilfoil, cattails and lily pads as you pull it across the pond. The razor-sharp tool weighs just 8 pounds, making it light enough to toss 30 feet or more yet heavy enough to sink straight to the bottom.

Sprayer

A sprayer makes pond chemical application easy. Most liquid chemicals are more effective when they’re sprayed over the target weed, and a tank sprayer, like an The Pond Guy® Specialty Pressurized Pond Chemical Tank Sprayer, is designed just for this purpose. The 2.75-gallon pond tool features a wide-mouth fill top that minimizes accidental spills and a high-pressure tank that allows you to spray hard-to-reach weeds.

Invest in a separate sprayer just for pond chemicals. If you use lawn and garden chemicals in the same sprayer that you use on your pond, doing so can be toxic to fish and other aquatic life as residue could be left behind. Keep your fish and pond plants healthy and happy: Use a different tool for the job.

Granular Spreader

The final must-have tool is a granular spreader, which helps you disperse granular herbicides evenly over your target area – and that means a more effective weed kill-off. The rust-proof Earthway® Granular Hand Spreader holds 10 pounds of material in a large hopper and features an application adjuster that lets you control how much product is released with its smooth-action hand crank.

Pond Talk: If you could only have one pond-care tool in your toolbox, what would it be? Why?

A: Leeches. They’re not for the squeamish. These little bloodsuckers – which are actually segmented worms related to earthworms – use their suction cup-like mouths and teeth to latch on to vertebrate and invertebrate animals, feeding on their blood.

The majority of leeches thrive in freshwater environments, though some species can be found on land and in the sea, too. Of the 700 different species of leeches, 100 are marine, 90 are terrestrial and the remaining 510 prefer habitats like your lake or pond.

One of the more common leeches found in North America is the Freshwater Leech or North American Leech. This brownish-green worm with black and red spots grows to about 2 inches long and lives in lakes, marshes and slow-moving streams.

Harmless – and Healthy

Historically, leeches have been used medicinally on humans to improve and restore blood circulation. The practice of leeching, or leech therapy, can be traced to India and Greece and has been done in both Europe and North America up until the 18th and 19th centuries. Though the practice waned for a time – likely a combination of the yuck factor and modern medicine – it’s slowing coming back into favor.

If a leech latches onto you, don’t worry. In most cases, it won’t do any harm. In fact, you might not even feel it as the tiny critter injects the spot with anesthetic-anticoagulant combo while attaching itself with its suckers. You can remove a leech by breaking its suction seal with your fingernail or another blunt object, causing the worm to detach its jaws.

Tiny Hitchhikers

The leeches in your pond have probably hitched a ride from visiting birds or plants that you’ve purchased and placed in your pond. Leeches will attach themselves to their host – like a duck or heron – and take in their fill of blood. Once they’re satiated, they’ll drop off and establish themselves in their new home. Leeches will also hide in plant roots and on the bottom of pots, and when you place them in your lake, they’ll happily move right in.

Fish Food

Fish love to gobble down leeches. A healthy fish population will, in most cases, keep leech numbers under control. Among game and lake fish, red ear sunfish do a great job of eating these worms. Other natural leech predators include turtles, crayfish and water fowl.

Prevention, Removal

Besides using your finned friends to control the leeches in your lake or pond, you can also try some of these recommendations:

•Control the muck on the bottom of your pond – which is where they lay their eggs and spend their off time – with a product like MuckAway™.
•Remove debris, cattails and phragmites from shallow areas of your pond.
•Add more leech-eating fish.
•Set a leech trap. Punch leech-size holes in a coffee or aluminum can, bait it with raw chicken and position it in a shallow area of your pond. When the worms go for the grub, they can get in – but not out. The burrs from the whole punch will prevent them from escaping. Remove the can once it’s full and repeat until the leeches are gone.

Pond Talk: What did you do the first time you found a leech locked onto your leg?

A: PondClear™ and MuckAway™ have their similarities and differences. They both are chemical free, safe to use in recreational ponds, and contain aerobic bacteria that naturally work to break down dead organic material in your pond or lake. They differ however, by targeting different types of debris.

Pond Logic® PondClear™ Beneficial Bacteria focuses on debris that’s suspended in the water column. The floating material may cause your pond or lake to appear cloudy. The beneficial microorganisms in PondClear™ consume and digest that suspended organic matter, leaving you with clean, clear, odor-free water and a healthy ecosystem. It’s even safe to use in ponds and lakes that water horses, livestock, pets, birds and other wildlife, as well as those that contain game fish.

Pond Logic® MuckAway™ Pond Muck Reducer focuses on sunken organic debris – also known as pond muck – that has accumulated along the beach, shoreline or pond bottom. The MuckAway™ pellets sick below the water’s surface and dissolve, releasing hungry beneficial bacteria that instantly begin consuming and digesting the settled debris. The all-natural muck buster is perfect for spot-treating trouble areas or managing material in canals or lake-front properties. As with PondClear™, MuckAway™ is safe to use around horses, livestock, pets, birds, wildlife and in lakes that contain game fish.

When used as directed, both PondClear™ and MuckAway™ will begin working right away and, in most cases, you can expect to see real results within one month of use. Of course, each pond is different; the longer the muck has had to accumulate, the longer it will take to be devoured by the bacteria.

To give the microorganisms a performance boost, add an aeration system to the pond and increase the water’s circulation. Aerobic bacteria require oxygen to live, thrive and reproduce. An aeration system, such as the Airmax® Deep Water Aeration System or the Kasco Surface Aerator, will diffuse O2 into the water while increasing the water’s movement and exposure to surface oxygen.

So before you add PondClear™ or MuckAway™ to your pond or lake, make sure you choose the product that targets your particular situation.

Are Products With Beneficial Bacteria The Same As Products With Enzymes?

Jeff – Carol Stream, IL

Natural bacteria and enzymes each play a very different role in your pond or lake. Understanding how each item affects your pond will help make selecting the right products easier.

Natural bacteria, like those in PondClear™ and MuckAway™, are microscopic organisms that decompose organic material such as dead algae/weeds, leaves and pond muck. Don’t let the word bacteria scare you, especially when it comes to these natural bacteria additives for ponds. They are completely natural and 100% safe. These aerobic bacteria (bacteria that require oxygen) are preferred for pond applications because they decompose organic material and pond muck at a faster rate than anaerobic bacteria, which do not require oxygen to survive.

Enzymes, on the other hand, are catalysts that aid natural bacteria by speeding up the digestion of dead material. They help ponds by lowering the activation energy needed for natural bacteria to digest dead materials. PondLogic® PondClear™ and MuckAway™ are unique in the fact that they possess the ability to produce their own enzymes unlike other bacteria additives on the market. There is no need to add additional enzymes.

Our recommendation; don’t be fooled by products that focus just on enzymes. Aerobic natural bacteria must already be present in the pond for enzymes to be productive. Instead, stick with PondLogic® aerobic natural bacteria products that produce their own enzymes as this will save you time & money as well as give you the results you want…clear water.